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Wednesday, September 11, 2013

[Article] Say hi to the new iPhone 5S

Yesterday (10th of September) Apple had their new high-end iPhone unveiling - the iPhone 5S. We all knew what it would look like - simply like the iPhone 5. But there are a couple of difference that makes it shine apart from the iPhone 5. They also had the iPhone 5C unveiling, but I don't give a damn about that cheap phone.

There are three different colors to choose from - Gold, Silver and Space Grey. Then, there is a dual LED flash, but contrary to what others use dual LEDs for (i.e. increased intensity), these are used to generate different flash colors to match the scene. Maybe intensity is also increased, but they are two different colors. The other notable difference is the ring surrounding the traditional home button. There is finger print detection technology built into iPhone 5S and that ring is to detect that you've placed the finger on the sensor. The sensor is underneath the home button.

That's all the external differences but there are a couple of speed enhancements too. The new A7 SOC is much faster than the A6 chip in the iPhone 5S. CPU supports 64bit. Graphics is two times faster. Now there is a co-processor to process all the signals from the sensors. That saves the CPU cycles for much more useful work. I was hoping to see the amount of RAM increased too, but looks like that is not there. It's alright. 1GB is still double the amount of RAM I have in this iPhone 4S.

So what do I think about it? It's a sweet upgrade. I really wanna see how well the finger print reader works. I hate typing passwords on my phone. And I'm a speedaholic. I would be in heaven with the A7 chip. But usually once I get used to the speed, I feel the need for more speed. That's what happened with the 4S. I am not much of a photographer, but if this gets me one step closer to not needing to carry my rather light point and shoot Canon S95, I'm happy with that.

I'm thinking about going for the Silver for myself and Gold for my wife. He upgrade is due in February. Unless there is an offer that we cannot say no to, she'll be upgrading to the iPhone 5S too.

Now the question is, will I be able to get one for me on launch? My contract is only coming to a conclusion in December I think. We have to keep it for 26 months contrary to the popular period of 24 months. When I upgraded to the iPhone 4S, they simply allowed me to upgrade from 3GS without paying any additional charges. I'm hoping that they do the same this time around as well.

iPhone 5S is coming to Docomo as well, so it increases competition. Docomo is Japan's largest carrier and I am expecting to see a lot of people switching from SoftBank to Docomo using MNP (Mobile Number Portability). SoftBank better come up with some amazing campaigns to keep their subscribers in their pocket. Previously, they wanted to make new customers. Now they have to do a lot more to keep them from switching. Good times for us, I hope.

September 20th is the day that we can all buy the iPhone 5S. Looking forward to that day. Weeee!